Hydrangea?

I think lily looks likely. Thanks!

my guess would be hydrangea too..not sure which one..put this on the hydrangea forum and ask "is this a hydrangea?"..people there will know..

Hm, OK, will ask over on hydrangeas too.

Definitely not a hydrangea, grab the stalks and you will see they are thin, dead and hollow.

in the winter my stems of some types of my hydrangeas ARE thin, appear dead and hollow..her pic reminds me of them..but I don't have lillies and don't know about them..I thought lillies died back in winter..do they?..

I cropped and enlarged the photo of the stem at the base in case it's a clue. Looked like the most distinctive feature. Ignore the bamboo stakes behind.

I don't know what I'm seeing..almost looks like someone peeled the layers of bark back until it stopped pulling then cut it..any real estate listing photos where the plant's leafed out?..

That stem has clearly had leaves down its whole length. You can also see undeveloped seed pods. It’s not a Hydrangea. Lily in my book.

Lily for sure. Not Hydrangea.

Another lily vote. The floral remains agree with that as well as the stems.

glad that you have multiple comments that agree..enjoy your lillies!..I never said "I know"..I said "my guess".."I think" etc but was only saying weak stems didn't rule out some hydrangeas..not every stem but mine have some bent and broken stems..

back a few years ago.. did we help you redo the front of the old house??? .. if so.. i always wondered how it all turned out ...

ken

Personally I have never seen Lilies with stems shaped like on the 3rd and 4th pics at the top, and with multiple stems coming from one point in the soil like on pics 1, 2 and 4. Could you do us a favour lalala and post some new pics here in this thread when the plant starts coming back to active life again in spring?

Spent parts shown are absolutely typical, including the remnants of undeveloped seed capsules at the tops of the stems. If these had instead been pollinated the characteristic old, split open pods would also be present. Maybe with some of the wafer-like seeds still stuck in them.

There is nothing about this material that resembles that produced by hydrangeas.

Posting the pics of the new material in spring will not hurt.

Although the bases of the stems are partially obscured by leaves and soil, if you look carefully you will see each stem rises independently from the ground. They don’t issue from a single point.

Thank you all for weighing in! I love this debate. It's been snowy and dark so I haven't gotten another photo but I'll try later today. And I'll definitely let you know what sprouts in spring!

Ken, I do think you helped with the front of my old house! I had a few questions--not sure which one you are remembering. Once we decided that we were unable to renovate that house and were going to move instead, we scaled back the landscaping plans. So we didn't end up replacing the dwarf alberta spruce, which was still looking OK but being slowly damaged by spider mites. We did plant some new inkberries, nepeta, and stachys 'big ears' that filled in the front gardens nicely. It wasn't perfect, but looked good enough that the house sold very quickly! (Of course, the real estate market near Boston is insane, so I could have probably paved over the whole front yard and the house would still have sold.) Looking forward to benefiting from your wisdom on my new house.

I finally got out there in daylight again, and I hope these photos should settle it. Although I'll take any more theories you may have, it's definitely not a hydrangea, and looks like lily to me. The stem is hollow and not woody. The tops look like the remains of flowers.

Photos 1 and 3 look to me like the dead remains of this:

Now I have to get up my nerve to look for the lily leaf beetle this summer, which I have always found to be the grossest of common pests. I've purposely never grown lilies because of it! Maybe this one has escaped their notice.

Posting a couple of other shrubs and plants for ID now!

It’s a lily.

I think we pretty much gilded that lily.

tj